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Japanese Prints 



By John Gould Fletcher 

Japanese Prints 
Goblins and Pagodas 
Irradiations: Sand and Spray 



'Of what is she dreaming? 
Of long nights Ht with orange lanterns, 
Of wine-cups and compliments and kisses of the two- 
sword men." X 



'UL'.£, 



Japanese Prints 

By 

John Gould Fletcher 



With Illustrations By 

Dorothy Pulis Lathrop 




Boston 

The Four Seas Company 
1918 



Copyright, 1918, by 
The Four Seas Company 



The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



JUL 27 19i8 



C1.A502582 



To My Wife 

Granted this dew-drop world be but a dew-drop world. 
This granted, yet — 



Table of Contents 



Preface i i 

Part I. 

Lovers Embracing 21 

A Picnic Under the Cherry Trees 22 

Court Lady Standing Under Cherry Tree 23 

Court Lady Standing Under a Plum Tree 24 

A Beautiful Woman 25 

A Reading 26 

An Actor as a Dancing Girl 27 

Josan No Miya 28 

An Oiran and Her Kamuso 29 

Two Ways Of Love 30 

Kurenai-ye or "Red Picture" 31 

A Woman Standing by a Gate with an Umbrella z~ 

Scene from a Drama ZZ 

A Woman in Winter Costume 34 

A Pedlar 35 

Kiyonobu and Kiyomasu Contrasted 36 

An Actor Z7 

Part IL 

Memory and Forgetting 41 

Pillar-Print, Masonobu 42 

The Young Daimyo 43 

Masonubu — Early 44 

The Beautiful Geisha 45 

A Young Girl 46 

The Heavenly Poetesses 47 

The Old Love and The New 48 

Fugitive Thoughts 49 

Disappointment 50 

The Traitor 51 

The Fop 52 

Changing Love 53 

In Exile 54 



The True Conqueror 55 

Spring Love 56 

The Endless Lament 57 

Toyonobu. Exile's Return 58 

Wind and Chrysanthemum 59 

The Endless Pilgrimage 60 

Part IIL 

The Clouds 63 

Two Ladies Contrasted 64 

A Night Festival 65 

Distant Coasts 66 

On the Banks of the Sumida 67 

Yoshiwara Festival 68 

Sharaku Dreams 69 

A Life 70 

Dead Thoughts 71 

A Comparison 72 

Mutability 73 

Despair 74 

The Lonely Grave 75 

Part IV. 

Evening Sky 79 

City Lights 80 

Fugitive Beauty 81 

Silver Jars 82 

Evening Rain 83 

Toy-Boxes 84 

Moods 85 

Grass 86 

A Landscape 87 

Terror 88 

Mid-Summer Dusk 89 

Evening Bell from a Distant Temple 90 

A Thought 91 

The Stars 92 

Japan 93 

Leaves 94 



List of Illustrations 

"Of what is she dreaming? 
Of long nights lit with orange lanterns, 
Of wine-cups and compliments and kisses 

of the two-sword men." Frontispiece 

Headpiece — Part I 19 

Tailpiece — Part 1 3i 

Headpiece — Part II 39 

"Out of the rings and the bubbles, 
The curls and the swirls of the water, 
Out of the crystalline shower of drops shattered in play, 
Her body and her thoughts arose." 46 

*'The cranes have come back to the temple, 
The winds are flapping the flags about. 
Through a flute of reeds 
I will blow a song." 58 

Tailpiece — Part II 60 

Headpiece — Part III 61 

"Then in her heart they grew, 
The snows of changeless winter, 
Stirred by the bitter winds of unsatisfied desire." 70 

Tailpiece — Part III 75 

Headpiece — Part IV .77 

Headpiece — Part IV 94 

"The green and violet peacocks 
Through the golden dusk 
Stately, nostalgically. 
Parade." Endleaf 



Preface 

4 T the earliest period concerning which we have 
h\ any accurate information, about the sixth 

"^ century A. D., Japanese poetry already con- 
tained the germ of its later development. 
The poems of this early date were composed of a first 
line of five syllables, followed by a second of seven, 
followed by a third of five, and so on, always ending 
with a line of seven syllables followed by another of 
equal number. Thus the whole poem, of whatever 
length (a poem of as many as forty-nine lines was 
scarce, even at that day) always was composed of an 
odd number of lines, alternating in length of syllables 
from five to seven, until the close, which was an extra 
seven syllable line. Other rules there were none. 
Ehyme, quantity, accent, stress were disregarded. 
Two vowels together must never be sounded as a 
diphthong, and a long vowel counts for two syllables, 
likewise a final " n ", and the consonant ' ' m " in some 
cases. 

This method of writing poetry may seem to the 
reader to sulfer from serious disadvantages. In reali- 
ty this was not the case. Contrast it for a moment 
with the undignified w^elter of undigested and ex parte 

[11] 



Japanese Prints 

theories which academic prosodists have tried for 
three hundred years to foist upon English verse, and 
it will be seen that the simple Japanese rule has the 
merit of dignity. The only part of it that we Occi- 
dentals could not accept perhaps, with advantage to 
ourselves, is the peculiarly Oriental insistence on an 
odd number of syllables for every line and an odd 
number of lines to every poem. To the Western 
mind, odd numbers sound incomplete. But to the 
Chinese (and Japanese art is mainly a highly-special- 
ized expression of Chinese thought), the odd numbers 
are masculine and hence heavenly; the even numbers 
feminine and hence earthy. This idea in itself, the 
antiquity of which no man can tell, deserves no less 
than a treatise be written on it. But the place for 
that treatise is not here. 

To return to our earliest Japanese form. Sooner 
or later this crystallized into what is called a tanka 
or short ode. This was always five lines in length, 
constructed syllabically 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, or thirty-one 
syllables in all. Innumerable numbers of these tanka 
were written. Gradually, during the feudal period, 
improvising verses became a pastime in court circles. 
Some one would utter the first three lines of a tanka 
and some one else would cap the composition by add- 
ing the last two. This division persisted. The first 
hemistich which was composed of 17 syllables grew 
to be called the hokku, the second or finishing hemi- 

[12] 



Preface 

stich of 14 syllables was called ageku. Thus was 
born the form which is more peculiarly Japanese 
than any other, and which only they have been able 
to carry to perfection. 

Composing hokku might, hovrever, have remained 
a mere game of elaborate literary conceits and double 
meanings, but for the genius of one man. This was 
the great Basho (1644-1694) who may be called cer- 
tainly the greatest epigrammatist of any time. Dur- 
ing a life of extreme and voluntary self-denial and 
wandering, Basho contrived to obtain over a thousand 
disciples, and to found a school of hokku writing 
which has persisted down to the present day. He 
reformed the hokku, by introducing into everything 
he wrote a deep spiritual significance underlying the 
words. He even went so far as to disregard upon 
occasion the syllabic rule, and to add extraneous syl- 
lables, if thereby he might perfect his statement. He 
set his face sternly against impromptus, poemes d' oc- 
casion, and the like. The number of his works were 
not large, and even these he perpetually sharpened 
and polished. His influence persisted for long after 
his death. A disciple and priest of Zen Buddhism 
himself, his work is permeated with the feeling of that 
doctrine. 

Zen Buddhism, as Basho practised it, may be 
called religion under the forms of nature. Every- 
thing on earth, from the clouds in the sky to the 

[13] 



Japanese Prints 

pebble by the roadside, has some spiritual or ethical 
significance for us. Blake's words describe the aim 
of the Zen Buddhist as well as any one 's : 
"To see a World in a grain of sand, 
And a Heaven in a wild flower; 

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 
And Eternity in an hour. ' ' 
Basho would have subscribed to this as the sole rule 
of poetry and imagination. The only difference be- 
tween the Western and the Eastern mystic is that 
where one sees the world in the grain of sand and 
tells you all about it, the other sees and lets his silence 
imply that he knows its meaning. Or to cjuote Lao- 
tzu: "Those who speak do not know, those who 
know do not speak." It must always be understood 
that there is an implied continuation to every Jap- 
anese hokku. The concluding hemistich, whereby 
the hokku becomes the tanka, is existent in the writer 's 
mind, but never uttered. 

Let us take an example. The most famous hokku 
that Basho wrote, might be literally translated thus: 
"An old pond 

And the sound of a frog leaping 

Into the water." 
This means nothing to the Western mind. But to the 
Japanese it means all the beauty of such a life of 
retirement and contemplation as Bash5 practised. If 
we permit our minds to supply the detail Basho de- 

[14] 



Preface 

liberately omitted, we see the mouldering temple en- 
closure, the sage himself in meditation, the ancient 
piece of water, and the sound of a frog's leap — pass- 
ing vanity — slipping into the silence of eternity. The 
poem has three meanings. First it is a statement of 
fact. Second, it is an emotion deduced from that. 
Third, it is a sort of spiritual allegory. And all this 
Bashd has given us in his seventeen syllables. 

All of Basho's poems have these three meanings. 
Again and again wq get a sublime suggestion out of 
some quite commonplace natural fact. For instance : 
''On the mountain-road 

There is no flower more beautiful 

Than the wild violet." 
The wild violet, scentless, growing hidden and neg- 
lected among the rocks of the mountain-road, sug- 
gested to Basho the life of the Buddhist hermit, and 
thus this poem becomes an exhortation to ''shun the 
world, if you would be sublime." 

I need not give further examples. The reader 
can now see for himself what the main object of the 
hokku poetry is, and what it achieved. Its object 
was some universalized emotion derived from a nat- 
ural fact. Its achievement was the expression of that 
emotion in the fewest possible terms. It is therefore 
necessary, if poetry in the English tongue is ever to 
attain again to the vitality and strength of its be- 
ginnings, that we sit once more at the feet of the 

[15] 



Japanese Prints 

Orient and learn from it how little words can express, 
how sparingly they should be used, and how much is 
contained in the meanest natural object. Shakespeare, 
who could close a scene of brooding terror with the 
w^ords: ''But see, the morn in russet mantle clad. 
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill" was 
nearer to the oriental spirit than we are. We have 
lost Shakespeare's instinct for nature and for fresh 
individual vision, and we are unwilling to acquire it 
through self -discipline. If we do not want art to dis- 
appear under the froth of shallow egotism, we must 
learn the lesson Basho can teach us. 

That is not to say, that, by taking the letter for 
the spirit, we should in any Avay strive to imitate the 
hokku form. Good hokkus cannot be written in Eng- 
lish. The thing we have to follow is not a form, but 
a spirit. Let us universalize our emotions as much 
as possible, let us become impersonal as Shakespeare 
or Basho was. Let us not gush about our fine feelings. 
Let us admit that the highest and noblest feelings 
are things that cannot be put into words. Therefore 
let us conceal them behind the words we have chosen. 
Our definition of poetry would then become that of 
Edwin Arlington Robinson, that poetry is a language 
which tells through a reaction upon our emotional 
natures something which cannot be put into words. 
Unless we set ourselves seriously to the task of under- 
standing that language is only a means and never an 

[16] 



Preface 

end, poetic art will be dead in fifty years, from a sur- 
feit of superficial cleverness and devitali^d realism. 
In the poems that follow I have taken as my sub- 
jects certain designs of the so-called Uki-oye (or Pass- 
ing World) school. These prints, made and produced 
for purely popular consumption by artists who, what- 
ever their genius, were despised by the literati of 
their time, share at least one characteristic with Jap- 
anese poetry, which is, that they exalt the most trivial 
and commonplace subjects into the universal signifi- 
cance of works of art. And therefore I have chosen 
them to illustrate my doctrine, which is this : that one 
must learn to do well small things before doing things 
great ; that the universe is just as much in the shape 
of a hand as it is in armies, politics, astronomy, or 
the exhortations of gospel-mongers; that style and 
technique rest on the thing conveyed and not the 
means of conveyance; and that though sentiment is 
a good thing, understanding is a better. As for the 
poems themselves they are in some cases not Japanese 
at all, but all illustrate something of the charm I 
have found in Japanese poetry and art. And if they 
induce others to seek that charm for themselves, my 
purpose v/ill have been attained. 

John Gould Fletcher. 



[17] 




Part I 



Lovers Embracing 

Force and yielding meet together : 
An attack is half repulsed. 
Shafts of broken sunlight dissolving 
Convolutions of torpid cloud. 



[21] 



A Picnic Under the Cherry Trees 

The boat drifts to rest 

Under the outward spraying branches. 

There is faint sound of quavering strings, 

The reedy murmurs of a flute, 

The soft sigh of the ^vind through silken garments; 

All these are mingled 

With the breeze that drifts away. 

Filled with thin petals of cherry blossom. 

Like tinkling laughter dancing away in sunlight. 



[22] 



Court Lady Standing Under Cherry Tree 

She is an iris, 

Dark purple, pale rose. 

Under the gnarled boughs 

That shatter their stars of bloom. 

She waves delicately 

With the movement of the tree. 

Of what is she dreaming? 

Of long nights lit with orange lanterns, 

Of wine cups and compliments and kisses of the 

two-sword men. 
And of dawn when weary sleepers 
Lie outstretched on the mats of the palace. 
And of the iris stalk that is broken in the fountain. 



[23] 



Court Lady Standing Under a Plum Tree 

Autumn winds roll through the dry leaves 

On her garments; 

Autumn birds shiver 

Athwart star-hung skies. 

Under the blossoming plum-tree, 

She expresses the pilgrimage 

Of grey souls passing, 

Athwart love's scarlet maples 

To the ash-stre^vn summit of death. 



[24] 



A Beautiful Woman 

Iris-amid-clouds 
Must be her name. 

Tall and lonely as the mountain-iris, 
Cold and distant. 



She has never known longing: 
Many have died for love of her. 



[25] 



A Reading 

''And the prince came to the craggy rock 

But saw only hissing waves 

So he rested all day amid them." 

He listens idly, 

He is content with her voice. 

He dreams it is the mnrmnr 
Of distant wave-caps breaking 
Upon the painted screen. 



[26] 



An Actor as a Dancing Girl 

The peony dancer 

Swirls orange folds of dusty robes 

Through the summer. 

They are spotted with thunder showers, 
Falling upon the crimson petals. 

Heavy blooms 

Breaking and spilling fiery cups 

Drowsily. 



[27] 



Josan No Miya 

She isi a fierce kitten leaping in sunlight 
Towards the swaying boughs. 

She is a gust of wind, 

Bending in parallel curves the boughs of the willow- 
tree. 



[28] 



An Oiran and her Kamuso 

Gilded hummingbirds are whizzing 
Through the palace garden, 
Deceived by the jade petals 
Of the Emperor's jewel-trees. 



[29] 



Two Ways of Love 

The wind half blows her robes, 

That subside 

Listlessly 

As swaying pines. 

The wind tosses hers 

In circles 

That recoil upon themselves : 

How should I love — as the swaying or tossing wind? 



[30] 



Kurenai-ye or "Red Picture'* 

She glances expectantly 
Through the pine avenue, 
To the cherry-tree summit 
Where her lover will appear. 

Faint rose anticipation colours her, 

And sunset; 

She is a cherry-tree that has taken long to bloom. 



[31] 



A Woman Standing by a Gate with an 
Umbrella 

Late summer changes to autumn: 
Chrysanthemums are scattered 
Behind the palings. 

Gold and vermilion 
The afternoon. 

I wait here dreaming of vermilion sunsets : 

In my heart is a half fear of the chill autumn rain. 



[32] 



Scene from a Drama 

The daimyo and the courtesan 
Compliment each other. 

He invites her to walk out through the maples, 
She half refuses, hiding fear in her heart. 

Far in the shadow 

The daimyo 's attendant waits, 

Nervously fingering his sword. 



[33] 



A Woman in Winter Costume 

She is like the great rains 

That fall over the earth in winter-time. 

Wave on wave her heavy robes collapse 
In green torrents 
Lashed with slaty foam. 

Downward the sun strikes amid them 

And enkindles a lone flower; 

A violet iris standing jqI in seething pools of grey. 



[34] 



A Pedlar 

Gaily he offers 
Packets of merchandise. 

He is a harlequin of illusions, 
His nimble features 
Skip into smiles, like rainbows, 
Cheating the villagers. 

But in his heart all the while is another knowledge, 
The sorrow of the bleakness of the long wet winter 
night. 



[35] 



Kiyonobu and Kiyomasu Contrasted 

One life is a long summer; 

Tall hollyhocks stand proud upon its paths; 

Little yellow waves of sunlight, 

Bring scarlet butterflies. 

Another life is a brief autumn, 

Fierce storm-rack scrawled with lightning 

Passed over it 

Leaving the naked bleeding earth. 

Stabbed with the swords of the rain. 



[36] 



An Actor 

He plots for he is angry, 
He sneers for he is bold. 

He clinches his fist 

Like a twisted snake; 

Coiling itself, preparing to raise its head. 

Above the long grasses of the plain. 




[37] 




Part II 



Memory and Forgetting 

I have forgotten how many times he kissed me, 

But I cannot forget 

A swaying branch— a leaf that fell 

To earth. 



[41] 



Pillar-Print, Masonobu 

He stands irresolute 

Cloaking the light of his lantern. 

Tonight he will either find new love or a sword-thrust, 
But his soul is troubled with ghosts of old regret. 

Like vines with crimson flowers 
They climb 
Upwards 
Into his heart. 



[42] 



The Young Daimyo 

When he first came out to meet me, 

He had just been girt with the two swords ; 

And I found he was far more interested in the glitter 
of their hilts, 

And did not even compare my kiss to a cherry- 
blossom. 



[43] 



Masonubu — Early 

She was a dream of moons, of fluttering handker- 
chiefs, 
Of flying leaves, of parasols, 
A riddle made to break my heart; 
The lightest impulse 

To her was more dear than the deep-toned temple bell. 
She fluttered to my sword-hilt an instant, 
And then flew away; 
But who will spend all day chasing a butterfly? 



[44] 



The Beautiful Geisha 

Swift waves hissing 
Under the moonlight; 
Tarnished silver. 

Swaying boats 
Under the moonlight, 
Gold lacquered prows. 

Is it a vision 

Under the moonlight? 

No, it is only 

A beautiful geisha swaying down the street. 



[45] 



A Young Girl 

Out of the rings and the bubbles, 

The curls and the swirls of the water, 

Out of the crystalline shower of drops shattered in 

play, 
Her body and her thoughts arose. 

She dreamed of some lover 

To whom she might offer her body 

Fresh and cool as a flower born in the rain. 



[46] 



<i3Jb// 3fll to A'li'N'd 9iil hn. . jriT 

n't b'y ' sqmb io tswofla sfiilfsJavT) sHt tri IrrO 

jnB glri^iJOflJ "i3fi hrrn (i [ 



*'Out of the rings and the bubbles, 
The curls and the swirls of the water, 
Out of the crystalline shower of drops shattered in 

play. 
Her body and her thoughts arose." 



The Heavenly Poetesses 

In their bark of bamboo reeds 
The heavenly poetesses 
Float across the sky. 

Poems are falling from them 

Swift as the wind that shakes the lance-like bamboo 

leaves ; 
The stars close around like bubbles 
Stirred by the silver oars of poems passing. 



[47] 



The Old Love and the New 

Beware, for the dying vine can hold 
The strongest oak. 

Only by cutting at the root 
Can love be altered. 

Late in the night 

A rosy glimmer yet defies the darkness. 

But the evening is growing late, 

The blinds are being lowered; 

She who held your heart and charmed you 

Is only a rosy glimmer of flame remembered. 



[48] 



. Fugitive Thoughts 

My thoughts are sparrows passing 

Through one great wave that breaks 

In bubbles of gold on a black motionless rocK. 



4f) 



Disappointment 

Rain rattles on the pavement, 
Puddles stand in the bluish stones; 
Afar in the Yoshiwara 
Is she who holds my heart. 

Alas, the torn lantern of my hope 
Trembles and sputters in the rain. 



[50] 



The Traitor 

I saw him pass at twilight; 
He was a dark cloud travelling 
Over palace roofs 
With one claw drooping. 

In his face were written ages 

Of patient treachery 

And the knowledge of his hour. 

One dainty thrust, no more 
Than this, he needs. 



[51] 



The Fop 

His heart is like a wind 
Torn between cloud and butterfly; 
Whether he will roll passively to one, 
Or chase endlessly the other. 



[52] 



Changing Love 

My love for her at first was like the smoke that drifts 
Across the marshes 
From burning woods. 

But, after she had gone, 

It was like the lotus that lifts up 

Its heart shaped buds from the dim waters. 



[53] 



In Exile 

My heart is mournful as thunder moving 

Through distant hills 

Late on a long still night of autumn. 

My heart is broken and mournful 

As rain heard beating 

Far off in the distance 

While earth is parched more near. 

On my heart is the black badge of exile ; 
I droop over it, 
I accept its shame. 



[54] 



The True Conqueror 

He only can bow to men 

Lofty as a god 

To those beneath him, 

Who has taken sins and sorrows 

And whose deathless spirit leaps 

Beneath them like a golden carp in the torrent. 



[55] 



spring Love 

Through the weak spring rains 
Two lovers walk together, 
Holding together the parasol. 

But the laughing rains of spring 

Will break the weak green shoots of their love. 

His will grow a towering stalk, 
Hers, a cowering flower under it. 



[56] 



The Endless Lament 

Spring rain falls through the cherry blossom, 

In long blue shafts 

On grasses strewn with delicate stars. 

The summer rain sifts through the drooping willow, 
Shatters the courtyard 
Leaving grey pools. 

The autumn rain drives through the maples 
Scarlet threads of sorrow, 
Towards the snowy earth. 

Would that the rains of all the winters 
Might wash away my grief! 



[57] 



Toyonobu. Exile's Return 

The cranes have come back to the temple, 
The winds are flapping the flags about, 
Through a flute of reeds 
I will blow a song. 

Let my song sigh as the breeze through the crypto- 

merias. 
And pause like long flags flapping. 
And dart and flutter aloft, like a \Wnd-bewildered 

crane. 



[58] 



!<jfn')} -^fii oJ jiosd ^mo'j avBfi ^anBij ^rlT" 
,tiJodB 2§£ft 9rft gniqqBft 3i£ Rbniw ariT 



"The cranes have come back to the temple, 
The winds are flapping the flags about, 
Through a flute of reeds 
I will blow a song." 



Wind and Chrysanthemum 

Chrysanthemums bending 
Before the wind. 

Chrysanthemums wavering 
In the black choked grasses. 

The wind frowns at them, 

He tears off a green and orange stalk of broken 
chrysanthemum. 

The chrysanthemums spread their flattered heads, 
And scurry off before the wind. 



[59] 



The Endless Pilgrimage 

Storm-birds of autumn 
With draggled wings: 

Sleet-beaten, wind-tattered, snow-frozen. 
Stopping in sheer weariness 
Betw^een the gnarled red pine trees 
Twisted in doubt and despair; 

Whence do you come, pilgrims. 

Over what snow fields? 

To what southern province 

Hidden behind dim peaks, would you go ? 

"Too long were the telling 
Wherefore we set out : 
And where we will find rest 
Only the Gods may tell." 




[60] 




Part III 



The Clouds 

Although there was no sound in all the house, 

I could not forbear listening for the cry of those long 

white rippling waves 
Dragging up their strength to break on the sullen 

beach of the sky. 



[63] 



Two Ladies Contrasted 

The harmonies of the robes of this gay lady 

Are like chants within a temple sweeping outwards 

To the morn. 

But I prefer the song of the wind by a stream 
Where a shy lily half hides itself in the grasses ; 
To the night of clouds and stars and wine and 

passion, 
In a palace of tesselated restraint and splendor. 



[64] 



A Night Festival 

Sparrows and tame magpies chatter 

In the porticoes 

Lit with many a lantern. 

There is idle song, 

Scandal over full wine cups, 

Sorrow does not matter. 

Only beyond the still grey shoji 

For the breadth of innumerable countries, 

Is the sea with ships asleep 

In the blue-black starless night. 



[65] 



Distant Coasts 

A squall has struck the sea afar off. 
You can feel it quiver 
Over the paper parasol 

With which she shields her face ; 

In the drawn-together skirts of her robes, 
As she turns to meet it. 



[66] 



On the Banks of the Stimida 

Windy evening of autumn, 
By the grey-green swirling river, 
People are resting like still boats 
Tugging uneasily at their cramped chains. 

Some are moving slowly 
Like the easy winds: 

Brown-blue, dull-green, the villages in the distance 

Sleep on the banks of the river : 

The waters sullenly clash and murmur. 

The chatter of the passersby, 

Is dulled beneath the grey unquiet sky. 



[67] 



Yoshiwara Festival 

The green and violet peacocks 

With golden tails 

Parade. 

Beneath the fluttering jangling streamers 
They walk 
Violet and gold. 

The green and violet peacocks 

Through the golden dusk 

Showered upon them from the vine-hung lanterns, 

Stately, nostalgically, 

Parade. 



[68] 



Sharaku Dreams 

I will scrawl on the walls of the night 
Faces. 

Leering, sneering, scowling, threatening faces; 

Weeping, twisting, yelling, howling faces; 

Faces fixed in a contortion between a scream and a 

laugh, 
Meaningless faces. 

I will cover the walls of night 
With faces. 
Till you do not know 

If these faces are but masks, or you the masks for 
them. 

Faces too grotesque for laughter, 
Faces too shattered by pain for tears, 
Faces of such ugliness 
That the ugliness grows beauty. 

They will haunt you morning, evening, 
Burning, burning, ever returning. 
Their own infamy creating. 
Till you strike at life and hate it. 
Burn your soul up so in hating. 

I will scrawl on the walls of the night 

Faces, 

Pitiless, 

Flaring, 

Staring. 

[69] 



A Life 

Her life was like a swiftly rushing stream 
Green and scarlet, 
Falling into darkness. 

The seasons passed for her, 
Like pale iris wilting, 

Or peonies flying to ribbons before the storm-gusts. 
The sombre pine-tops waited until the seasons had 
passed. 

Then in her heart they grew 

The snows of changeless winter 

Stirred by the bitter winds of unsatisfied desire. 



[70] 



//'j-tjj[ rjiii j'u^jii "lyfi in ion i 



"Then m her heart they grew 
The snows of changeless winter, 
Stirred by the bitter winds of unsatisfied desire." 



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Dead Thoughts 

My thoughts are an autumn breeze 

Lifting and hurrying 

Dry rubbish about in a corner. 

My thoughts are willow branches 
Already broken 
Motionless at twilight. 



171] 



A Comparison 

My beloved is like blue smoke that rises 

In long slow planes, 

And wavers 

Over the dark paths of old gardens long neglected. 



[72] 



Mutability 

The wind shakes the mists 

Making them quiver 

With faint drum-tones of thunder. 

Out of the crane-haunted mists of autumn, 
Blue and brown 
Rolls the moon. 

There was a city living here long ago, 

Of all that city 

There is only one stone left half-buried in the marsh, 

With characters upon it which no one now can read. 



[73] 



Despair 

Despair hangs in the broken folds of my garments; 

It clogs my footsteps, 

Like snow in the cherry bloom. 

In my heart is the sorrow 

Of years like red leaves buried in snow. 



[74] 



The Lonely Grave 

Pilgrims will ascend the road in early summer, 
Passing my tombstone 
Mossy, long forgotten. 

Girls will laugh and scatter cherry petals. 
Sometimes they ^vill rest in the twisted pine-trees' 
shade. 

If one presses her warm lips to this tablet 
The dust of my body will feel a thrill, deep down in 
the silent earth. 




[75] 




Part IV 



Evening Sky 

The sky spreads out its poor array 

Of tattered flags, 

Saffron and rose 

Over the weary huddle of housetops 

Smoking their evening pipes in silence. 



[79] 



City Lights 

The city gleams with lights this evening 

Like loud and yawning laughter from red lips. 



[80] 



Fugitive Beauty 

As the fish that leaps from the river, 
As the dropping of a November leaf 'at twilight, 
As the faint flicker of lightning down the southern 
sky, 

So I saw beauty, far away. 



[81] 



Silver Jars 

I dreamed I caught your loveliness 
In little silver jars: 
And when you died I opened them, 
And there was only soot within. 



[82] 



Evening Rain 

Rain fell so softly, in the evening, 

I almost thought it was the trees that were talking. 



[83] 



Toy-Boxes 

Cities are the toy -boxes 

Time plays with : 

And there are often many doll-houses 

Of which the dolls are lost. 



[84] 



Moods 

A poet's moods: 

Fluttering butterflies in the rain. 



[85] 



Grass 

Grass moves in the wind, 
My soul is backwards blown. 



[861 



A Landscape 



Land, green-brown; 
Sea, brown-grey; 
Island, dull peacock blue; 
Sky, stone-grey. 



[87] 



Terror 

Because of the long pallid petals of white chrysan- 
themums 
Waving to and fro, 
I dare not go. 



[88] 



Mid-Summer Dusk 

Swallows twittering at twilight: 

Waves of heat 

Churned to flames by the sun. 



[89] 



Evening Bell from a Distant Temple 

A bell in the fog 
Creeps out echoing faintly 
The pale broad flashes 
Of vibrating twilight, 
Faded gold. 



[90] 



A Thought 

A piece of paper ready to toss in the fire, 
Blackened, scrawled with fragments of an incomplete 

song: 
My soul. 



[91] 



The Stars 

There is a goddess who walks shrouded by day: 
At night she throws her blue veil over the earth. 
Men only see her naked glory through the little holes 
in the veil. 



[92] 



Japan 

An old courtyard 

Hidden away 

In the afternoon. 

Grey walks, 

Mossy stones, 

Copper carp swimming lazily, 

And beyond, 

A faint toneless hissing echo of rain 

That tears at my heart. 



[93] 



Leaves 

The splaying silhouette of horse-chestnut leaves 
Against the tali and delicate, patrician-tinged sky 
Like a princess in blue robes behind a grille of bronze. 




[94] 



An edition of 1000 copies only, of which 975 copies have been 
printed on Olde Style paper, and 25 copies on Japanese Vellum. 














D.PX 



